The Dukes See a Movie: The Eagle

This is actually quite a simple review. It could be summed up in four words and a symbol. They would be this: The Eagle = Skyline 2.

February is notorious for having absolutely terrible movies. Similar to the 8:00 PM on Friday time slot for television, Movies executives don't believe can compete in the Holiday season are put here to die. So while we were sitting there in this horrible time for movies, we began to feel a hole in our lives, and upon further inspection we discovered that that hole was the lack of a exceptional movie theatre experience. When we discovered this, we decided "Why not? The Eagle could be good"....what poor, ignorant fools we were.

The Eagle is your typical Sandal & Swordplay film, or at least that is what we thought it would be. It starts out with with one Channing Tatum who plays a newly appointed centurion, who has taken the post at a Roman garrison in Britain at "The end of the world". The story goes on to explain that Mr. Tatum is the son of a Centurion who was at the same post in Britain. It was his assignment to spread the Roman Empire, so he took something like 5,000 soldiers out to the wilds, and disappeared (insert spooky sound if you'd like). The problem with him disappearing is that he had a Roman standard, A golden Eagle on a stick (kind of like hot dog on a stick, except less edible and probably not made by people with funny hats) and this standard was lost, shaming his family, as well as the entire empire. So Mr. Tatum decides to avenge his father and regain honor which apparently used to mean something.

The story starts out at the Roman garrison, while Tatum immediately takes control and runs drills and all the good stuff that a leader should do. One night Tatum uses his super human hearing to...um...hear, an attack coming from the people who aren't too fond of the Romans. An interesting battle ensues and there is some killing and such, I seem to recall a fire-y pit or moat or something like that. Regardless it was an interesting battle, and unfortunately it happened in the first 15 minutes of the movie, and nothing else happened at all. For the quick break down we'll go to a bullet point format.

• Tatum is injured and honorably discharged from the military



• Tatum saves a slave by convincing a crowd to put their thumbs up



• Tatum and said slave go into the "end of the world" searching for the eagleonastick



• Tatum/Slave run into really mean tribe name "seal people" (because all mean tribes should be named after fluffy animals that are clubbed for boots)



• Slave says he owns Tatum to keep Seal people from clubbing him (see the irony there)



• Awkward "does he serve Tatum or is he going to abandon him"

I'm not going to spoil the movie plot for you, but let me just tell you this much: It sucks. The acting is better in Twilight (yes that is an insult) and the plot doesn't develop at a rate that keeps your attention. Plus any movie that has a the main antagonist as a tribe of white guys that paint themselves whiter, and then name themselves after a seal, isn't worth much in my opinion.

Possibly the best part of this movie was leaving, mainly because The Dukes, who had surprisingly not spoken through the entire movie, all let out a collective sigh of relief and immediately started ranting against this terrible joke of a production.

Rating: 1 Star (Because there was fire in a moat and one decent fight scene.)

The Dukes See a Movie: Unknown

A few days back the Dukes had a few dollars and a few hours on their hands. We decided to use them both on the movie Unknown. Now some of you may be confused, is that a movie title or you you picking a movie entirely at random? The answer is a movie title. Don't worry you aren't the only ones that were befuddled by this. In attempting to tell people of the event we had this conversation several times. Sadly that caused me to prematurely judge the movie. "Stupid name. All you do is breed confusion. I hate you Unknown the movie title." That is a real conversation I had with myself in my mind.

Back to the actual show. In the movie Liam Neeson plays a character called Martin Harris (seriously Martin Harris. I thought it was going to be some really strange interpretation about how the church started.) He arrives in Berlin with his wife and as they are about to check in he realizes he forgot his briefcase at the airport. He gets a cab and starts heading back. Lucky for all of us movie watchers the cab driver is none other than Diane Kruger the German born hottie. (She is the main girl in National Treasure) On the way back they are in a crazy accident and end up in the river. She pulls Dr.  Harris out of the car and ditches the place. When he wakes up in a hospital he is a little out of it. He is pretty confused but convinces tham to let him go.


Naturally he seeks out his wife but when he gets there she doesn't seem to recognize him and there is another man playing the part of Dr. Harris. He is cleverly called Martin B in the end credits. I don't know why but that made me happy. The real Martin Harris starts to remember that he was there for some kind of Bio convention and that someone may be in danger. In the end he enlists the help of the hot cab driver and some really old communist spy guy.


Here I am going to have to leave you with a good amount of nothing since it would give away the ending. the movie was good and had a Hitchcockian flair to it. It has some twists and a good amount of suspense. The action sequences were decent and things blew up. The dukes enjoyed the movie, well the dukes minus a ginger. He didn't like it but since I have a much classier taste in films you should listen to my opinions not his. I watch foreign films for fun for Pete's sake.

Rating 3.5 stars. (the movie title lost it a quarter star)